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NOLA HOPING TO LIFT PHILLIES
Aaron Nola takes the mound tonight near the top of the optimal board for his Philadelphia Phillies as they go up against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Nola has been incredible and reliable for the majority of the season. He’ll be taking a ton of extra confidence into tonight, coming off his best start of the year, where he threw a complete game shutout with eleven strikeouts. Overall, we know we will be getting a high strikeout upside with him, given his 28.5% clip, but he also has the lowest BB/9 ratio in baseball. His expected ERA is the second best in the bigs while having a sub-1.00 that places him in elite company. Nola will solidify his dominance and give the Phillies what they need from him tonight and down the stretch.
Philadelphia desperately could use a dominant outing from Nola, given that they allowed 13 unanswered runs to this mediocre Diamondbacks offense last night in embarrassing fashion. Arizona obviously is nothing special offensively, but they still have been swinging the bats at a respectable rate lately as we see their ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ sitting in the middle of the pack over the past two weeks. The Diamondbacks have been striking out at a sub-20% rate during that same span, which normally would give us cause for concern, but when Nola is on his game like he was in his last outing, he can be virtually unhittable. We do not expect Nola to be slightly over-owned on this slate, but nothing too crazy. He is a high upside play with one of the most elevated ceilings of any pitcher in baseball when he is on his game, and given the lack of stand-out options on this slate, this is a play to make with a high floor. No one really expects the D-Backs to rake on back-to-back nights anyway, right?
GAUSMAN LOOKING TO ASSERT HIMSELF
Kevin Gausman also finds himself near the top of the optimal for tonight’s slate ahead of his matchup against the Chicago Cubs. Gausman has had a strong season for Toronto as we have seen him collect a near 3.00 ERA and solid strikeout production with a near 28% rate. His expected ERA and FIP are both in strong spots, but his WHIP is actually in a noticeably higher place than anticipated, as it is 11th-worst in baseball among qualified pitchers. Out of the bottom 15 pitchers in that category, he has the lowest ERA, so we can look at how well he limits power as a promising sign going forward since his allowed HR/9 is at the second lowest rate in baseball among those qualified.
Gausman has had a pretty inconsistent August as over five outings, three of those were scoreless, and in the other two, he let up a combined nine earned runs. Can we expect another scoreless outing for Gausman tonight? The Cubs line up nicely for a possible recurrence as they have ranked in the bottom five in wOBA and wRC+ over the past two weeks. They have shown a little upside as they rank 15th in that category over the same stretch, but we know how well Gausman can limit power, so we should not be too concerned about the Cubs’ metric discrepancies. We are seeing slight leverage on Gausman tonight at a reasonable salary of $8700, so if you are looking to fade a bad offense tonight against a high upside pitcher without sacrificing leverage, Gausman looks to fit that mold excellently.
